14 May Teacher Spotlight: Bret Geller & Patrick Williams
Our Northshore Schools Foundation Teacher Spotlight this week is a shared spotlight for Skyview Middle School PE teachers, Mr. Bret Geller and Mr. Patrick Williams.
We learned that these teachers were up to something fun, beyond the PE class, for their Skyview students during Northshore Learns v2.0.
Patrick Williams told us: “About a month ago, Bret Geller gets this idea to start an optional cooking class on Wednesdays for the students. He knows I love to cook so we ran with it and are having a blast.” On Wednesday afternoons, the students are welcome to join this optional cooking class.
The class has been going for 5 weeks (at the time of this posting) and the class has learned how to cook: Power Balls (delicious and easy to make), Pizza dough and full pizzas, Snickerdoodle Cookies and French Toast (right before Mother’s Day so students can surprise mom!)
The major points this class has been focusing on:
1) Planning and preparation for the meal.
2) Ingredients list
3) Measuring / Fractions / Following Directions / Shapes / Problem Solving
4) Overall kitchen safety when dealing with stovetops, ovens, etc.
5) Clean up
6) Connecting with students and having fun
7) Opportunity to learn life skills
Each week, a few more chefs join in. This teaching team invited their entire staff and 1st-semester students, as well. Mr. Geller and Mr. Williams really saw this as a great opportunity to learn life lessons learning how to plan and prepare meals.
Williams said: “Next week, Meal 5, we are encouraging a student{s} to host and be the teaching chef. We have several interested student chefs so this could be an awesome week for the cooking class.”
We can’t wait to hear about all the delicious things these students “chef up” during this remote learning time. Thank you to Mr. Geller and Mr. Williams for coming up with this creative way to engage their students who need connection so much right now, as well as giving them an opportunity to learn a much-needed life skill.
If you know of a teacher in our district who is doing creative and innovative education in our new virtual classroom platform that we should know about please email their info to julie@nsdfoundation.org
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Northshore Schools Foundation is a local 501(c)3 non-profit serving students and teachers in the Northshore School District, located in the communities of Bothell, Kenmore, and Woodinville. Since 1995, Northshore Schools Foundation donors have funded more than $2 million in grants to benefit the district’s students and teachers. To learn more, visit www.northshoreschoolsfoundation.org.
